


Black and Twisted Heart

by magnificent



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Hate Sex, Hate to Love, Love/Hate, Psychological Torture, Sadism, Torture, Touch-Starved, evil karma, male virgin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 01:43:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9526313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnificent/pseuds/magnificent
Summary: An evil karma Lone Wanderer buys Charon's contract ten years after the main quest.





	1. Venture, Risk, and Capital

**Author's Note:**

  * For [necrosweater (vocalRenegade)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=necrosweater+%28vocalRenegade%29).



> Necrosweater is a babe and likes evil karma LW, so... enjoy? :3

The smoothskin that walks into the Ninth Circle is instantly recognizable. Long, long brown hair, long enough to reach her hips if she didn't have it pinned up, a somewhat masculine jaw, and the coldest eyes of the Capitol Wasteland. If that weren't enough, then the embroidery on her leather duds would be the next tip-off: above her left breast is stitched _Queen Bitch._ Third tip-off, (if anyone were unlucky enough to see her in such a compromising position, that is) rumor has it that across her lower back is tattooed _Power Bottom._ But if anyone got that close to find out, they'd be dead the instant they finished reading the last letter.

It's Rosa Marie Valencia, the so-called Spanish Rose of the wastelands, though heavens help you if you try to woo her with a bit of Spanish; they say that she's so passionate about her heritage that she'll skin a man alive for pronouncing a single word wrong.

Spanish Rose isn't her only title. She's also known as Evil Incarnate, the Reaver, the Vault Boogeyman, and Consort of Discord.

And some whisper that she's the devil herself.

Urban superstitions aside, it's no joke that she is a ruthless woman. She single-handedly destroyed Evergreen Mills, razed it to the ground, and then built her own outpost right on its ashes merely out of spite. She overtook Little Lamplight and turned it into a slaver's hub. Her most damning glory, though, is that she spent almost a full year in Megaton, gaining the trust of the citizens, living amongst them and helping them—only to set off their nuke and blow them all to oblivion.

There are few things that the man in the corner fears, and this woman is not one of them. But hate? Yes. He does hate her. Charon has heard about Rosa Marie on the radio many, many times. He started paying attention early on, back when she was still doing her 'good kid' shtick, and he heard how Three Dog's tone changed from enthusiastic to angry, then wary, then tired.

For the past ten years, it's been pretty goddamn tired.

“Well, well, well,” comes Ahzrukhal's thin chuckle across the room. “Look who we have here. A pleasure! An honor! Welcome to the Ninth Circle. Let me offer you something to, uh, wet your tongue.”

Charon's eyes flick to the Rose. She's relaxed, her thumbs in her belt-loops; and why shouldn't she be? She's got her men surrounding her. Before Rosa Marie even set foot into the room, two of her goons had pushed their way through and had checked everything over before opening the doors for her. “Beer. Make it a cold one.”

“Of course, of course.” Ahzrukhal glances at her security detail, then over at Charon, probably wondering if he's capable of killing them all and also protecting Ahzrukhal himself—Charon gives him a small nod in confirmation.

The bartender looks back at the group. “Three caps.”

Rosa says, “I don't think so. I'd say it's on the house.”

 _Wrong move._ Ahzrukhal's face tightens and his lips thin. “Hmm... now, I like smoothskins as much as the next ghoul... but even I require a little bit of payment for my services. If you don't want to pay the caps, then I'm sure you might think of another, more... private... way to pay your debts.”

Charon tenses. _Of course._ Ahzrukhal _would_ have to goad the most dangerous woman in the wastelands, wouldn't he? And the Spanish Rose's straitlaced sexuality, despite the rumors of a saucy tattoo, would never allow her to ignore that kind of comment.

A large hand reaches down and clasps the bottle; she's missing the last segment of her pinky finger. Without breaking eye contact with Ahzrukhal, she pops the cap with her teeth, spits it, and says, “There's one.”

“Well, fancy that. Two more to go.”

Rosa nods, and a wisp of brown hair escapes from her bun to rest against her cheek. “Alright, Scalper. You heard the ghoul. He wants caps; give him what he asked for.”

The world around them slows. Five raiders, four men and one woman, all reaching for their weapons. At fifty-five degrees, a man with a submachine gun. Fifty degrees, a shotgun. Forty-eight degrees, the Spanish Rose is- no, she's not reaching for a weapon, she's... putting her hands in her pockets? Charon will have to worry about that later, because the two men in front both have pistols. Brownings. He'd taken note, admiringly, the moment they stepped in.

That admiration, however, is no longer there; it is only ruthless calculation and urgency.

“Get down!” Charon roars, and as his master ducks below the bar, he fires on them, taking the first one out with an explosive headshot that sends brains and blood spurting all over the room. The second one gets caught in the back; and then the rest of them are turning on him.

“Nngh!” He grunts as a piece of lead sears through his arm and out of his shoulder; he's squinting, the essence of blind focus. There are no thoughts and no worries. He simply _is._

And then the machine in him eliminates all threats, and he is back to himself. The peace is gone, that blissful mindlessness revoked, and he is left in a room filled with broken bodies and gun smoke.

Wait. The Spanish Rose is still standing? He pulls the trigger of his shotgun, and it clicks. Charon curses and reloads, but she only lifts her hands.

“A moment, if you will,” she says calmly, and kicks a small bag across the room to him. “Give this to your master, with my apologies.”

Distrustful, Charon noses the bag open with the barrel of his gun. _Caps. Probably around a thousand._ He glances up at her, with narrowed eyes, and digs through it once to double-check that she didn't pack an additional, _explosive_ surprise. It's clean.

He's surprised, but the Spanish Rose doesn't look like she's planning on attacking either of them any time soon, so he leaves her alone for now. He doesn't doubt that she has some sort of additional insurance to keep her alive, or he'd unload his gun in her face right this second.

Ahzrukhal is still crouched behind the bar, hands over his head, and looks up at Charon. “It's clear?”

“For now,” Charon rumbles, and hands him the bag of caps. The bartender stares into it for a few moments—Charon hears a sound and whips around, but it's only the Rose, approaching with her hands up.

She takes a seat at the bar. “For the damages.”

Ahzrukhal blinks. Charon's rarely seen him shocked silent, but he supposes that this occasion might merit it.

“Your bodyguard,” Rosa Marie says, and slides three more caps across the countertop. “He's as good as they say.”

Ahzrukhal scoops them up warily, and places another cold beer on the countertop. “That's what this was about? You're lucky I didn't have any customers.”

“I had my men check first,” Rosa says. “After all, I'm here on business. The friendly kind, not the extortive kind.”

“Hell of a way to show it, smoothskin,” Ahzrukhal growls. “You and I both could have died. And you wasted four men just to test my bodyguard?”

“You're a businessman,” Rosa says. “Think of it as an investment. All investments have risks. And no matter which way things turned out, we would have learned a valuable lesson. Had you died, I would have realized that your man isn't worth his reputation; and if I died, you'd have a good many caps for your trouble. However, both of us are alive, aren't we?”

Ahzrukhal grudgingly concedes that this is so.

“Moreover, I was in very little danger from the start,” Rosa continues. “I wouldn't come all this way just to be killed by a ghoul bouncer.”

“You said you were here on business,” Ahzrukhal says.

“Mm. I'd like to purchase the contract.”

“Charon? Well, I figured as much.” His master pauses. “But how did you hear of him? To the best of my knowledge, you've only been in my bar once before, and that was, oh... eleven years ago? Twelve? Did you really remember him after all this time?”

Charon shifts uneasily.

“I overheard one of my men,” Rosa says. “Idle gossip about the best fighters in the wasteland, swapping stories of meeting local legends. The story about a seven-foot ghoul with a black shotgun and the best accuracy on this side of the Mason Dixon line stood out to me. Most interesting to me, though, was the rumor that he's loyal to his contract-holder and no one else.”

Well, that much is true. Whether or not he's the 'best shot on this side of the Mason Dixon line' is questionable, though Charon knows he must rank highly on the list.

But the thought of becoming this woman's bodyguard—her pet—her possession—it sickens him. He has heard nothing but news of her boundless evil, and even after over sixty years of service with Ahzrukhal, he's not sure that leaving with Rosa would be an improvement. He despises the man, but at least with Ahzrukhal he knows what he's getting. He has the ghoul's every movement and tic memorized.

“You haven't heard wrong,” his employer answers. “His contract demands absolute obedience. If I gave the word, he would kill you without a second thought. On stand-by, though, such as right now, he's as gentle as a kitten—he's been ordered to not hurt anyone unless they attempt to harm myself or the bar.”

Ahzrukhal grimaces. “Well, _that_ was only after he snapped the wrist of a rather persistent young lady who was trying to get him to break expression. Don't need him maiming our customers.”

Charon blinks. _Ah, that._ That hadn't been intentional. Back in his early days, before his reputation in this area had been established, his height had been more of an exciting novelty rather than something to fear.

It'd been a smoothskin girl. Much younger than this one, much prettier, much kinder. She'd sauntered up to him with a teasing look on her face and had started trying to pry a conversation out of him. A few minutes later, and she'd grown both irritated and bold enough to resort to dirty tactics; she had reached forward, oh so slowly, and rested a palm against his chest.

He could shudder at the memory. That warmth. Her smile.

Charon is a fearless man, but that girl in particular drove a special kind of terror into his heart. He remembers how his adrenaline had spiked, the rush of blood pounding in his veins, the struggle to keep his face calm and clear.

 _“Still don't feel like talking, eh?”_ she'd asked, her eyes fixed on his chest. _“How strange. I'd think that a man like you might have a lot to say. The stories you must have. The things you must have seen...”_

Her fingers had trailed down his chest, and he'd struggled to swallow, his mouth suddenly dry. Her eyes had flicked up to his, and there was a rush of horror when he realized that his composure was coming apart at the seams. _She knew._ She knew he was weak, knew his _only_ weakness—that he'd been longing for genuine human contact. Any kind, from anyone: young or old, male or female, it wouldn't have mattered. He had been longing for someone to speak to him gently, and to touch him.

She'd reached for his arm with her other hand, and without a second thought, he broken her wrist.

He hadn't been touched, not once, not _like that_ since becoming a ghoul, and hadn't been touched since.

“A killer instinct, then,” Rosa is saying.

“Yes. Very much so. Hm. Hey, Charon. You know how many people you've killed?”

He licks his lips. “Uncertain.”

“Take a guess.”

“One thousand, give or take a few, within my lifetime.”

“And these are all human and ghoul deaths, right? You aren't counting Super Mutants?”

“No.”

Ahzrukhal looks at Rosa. “Well, there you have it.”

“He always answers your questions honestly?”

“Yes, although he tends towards shorter comments. As I'm sure you've noticed.” The bartender flashes a grin. “Absolute loyalty, just like I said. Want me to prove it? He'll do anything you ask, without hesitation.”

“Even hurt himself?”

Ahzrukhal pauses. “Well, no. He's forbidden, contractually, from causing harm to himself or to his employer. That's his number one prerogative, keeping me alive. He'd die before he let anything cause me harm.”

Charon desperately wishes he could shoot the goddamn smirk off of the other ghoul's face.

“Mm. Alright, prove it.”

“Gladly. Charon. Your knife, please?”

Grudgingly, Charon says, “I cannot give you any weaponry if you have the intent to harm yourself.”

Ahzrukhal rolls his eyes. “Alright, fine. Miss Valencia, do you have a suitable weapon?”

“I do, but with the way he's tensing up, it looks like he's gearing up to kill me the instant I pull it out of my boot.”

Charon curses himself for being so obvious.

Ahzrukhal sighs. “Then... a different kind of proof. What would you like to see?”

“Hm. Well, make him do whatever you think he'll hate most.”

Ahzrukhal turns to Charon with a frown, studying him, and Charon fixes his gaze at the wall slightly behind them. _Shit. Nothing too terrible, please, don't make me do anything awful._ God knows how many stains his soul has already.

Then again, what's one more?

His employer's eyes gleam, and he snaps his fingers. “Strip.”

Charon blinks, and his hands move towards the buckles of his leather armor before he can even comprehend what Ahzrukhal is asking. “Wh- _what?”_

“Strip. Nude.”

His eyes squeeze shut for a moment, he bites his lip, and then his fingers unloop the strips of leather, more slowly this time.

_No. No!_

_Thud._ The armor drops to the ground. He removes his collared shirt next, and then his boots and socks. Then his belt.

_No... stop! Isn't this far enough? I can't stop myself, isn't it already obvious enough?_

He takes a deep breath, standing in his pants and undershirt, and then, as slowly as the contract will allow, he pulls it over his shoulders and drops it on the floor beside him with the rest of his clothes.

Already he can feel himself blushing. _Damn you, Ahzrukhal!_ How on earth did that disgusting man know that this was the worst thing he could order him to do? He's lived for over two hundred years, has killed more people than some have even seen, and tortured more people than he would like to remember.

But this? This is something different, something... wrong. A corruption of the last bit of innocence he has left. All of his employers have been men, and a male mercenary/bodyguard in the wastelands has little time or companionship with women, let alone anything more. He isn't hardened against something like this, doesn't know how to protect himself against it.

Because, no woman has ever seen him naked before.

Charon's face burns in shame as he steps out of his boxers, and tosses them aside.

"..."

He does not dare look at either one of them, and cringes at Ahzrukhal's snigger. He keeps his gaze fixed on the ground, and keeps his hands forced to his sides. He refuses to let his employer know exactly how ashamed he is.

He is a monster. He has so little skin left, and so many oozing burns and wheals from the atomic blasts that have leveled America; he is ridged with spots and flecks where infection has set in, rendering him crusty with pus and dried blood. Lines of tendon can be seen at the deepest part of him, at his belly. And the places that aren't disfigured from ghoulification are scarred from fighting.

“You see? His hands were shaking from the effort,” he hears Ahzrukhal cackle. “Goddamn. I'll have to sell him to you now, or else he'll kill me in my sleep.”

He listens to the click of Rosa's shoes as she circles around him.

“An impressive physique,” she says dryly. “Is this amount of chafing and oozing... normal? He isn't sick, is he? Quite monstrous.”

“Mm, there's a reason why you pretty young things won't lay with us,” Ahzrukhal laughs. “No, that's normal. We all look like that underneath our clothes. So, are you convinced?”

“Indeed. Well, I'll let you set the asking price.”

“Four thousand caps,” Ahzrukhal says immediately.

Charon curses inwardly. _Dammit!_ He knew there must have been a reason why his employer was praising him so much. He's not actually so trusting of Charon; he was only trying to get as much money out of him as possible. That's over twice the amount what Ahzrukhal paid for his contract.

“Hm... agreed.” Rosa turns and heads back over to the door and Charon listens to the clinking and rustling of her bag as she pulls out another sack of caps. He grits his teeth.

“Ah, and Charon, put your clothes back on. You're nauseating.”

He's grabbing his undergarments before Ahzrukhal is finished speaking. Rosa is standing with her back turned, probably the only fortunate thing about this whole day, and he's doing the top button of his shirt before she turns again. Charon's never dressed faster in his entire life.

Ahzrukhal smirks at the sight of so many caps, and is quick to sweep them into his safe. He returns with the contract, safe in its envelope, and Charon's chest tightens.

“Here you are, my dear,” Ahzrukhal says warmly, and Rosa takes the envelope. “I hope he serves you well.”

Charon shoots him in the head before he can take another breath. His heart is pounding, all sorts of unnameable emotions swirling through him—decades of pain and suffering, and this is all that has come of it? A swift end. Ahzrukhal deserved much worse.

He shoots him in the stomach for good measure.

Rosa says, “Do you know the passcode for the safe?”

“Yes.”

“Open it and get my caps back.”

Charon obediently retrieves the bag of four thousand caps, leaving all of the other valuables inside, with the safe door ajar. Hopefully the other residents of Underworld will be able to make use of what Ahzrukhal has left behind.

Rosa muses, “A five thousand cap down payment with a one hundred percent return? Wish all my other transactions were this easy.”

Her cold eyes sweep him over, and Charon shifts his weight. Part of him wishes that he had given into his crippling shame and covered himself when Ahzrukhal asked him to strip. At least then she wouldn't... she wouldn't...

_But she has._

She snaps her fingers, and he follows.

 


	2. As Empty as Her Heart

She asks, “So, do you kill all of your previous employers?”

They're walking through the DC ruins together, flanked on either side by even more of her men. They form a loose circle around them, and Charon is trapped in the center with the Spanish Rose.

“Not all,” he admits.

“Then why'd you do it?”

“Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard. So long as he held my contract, I was honor bound to do as he commanded. But now you are my employer, which freed me to rid the world of that disgusting rat. And now, for good or ill, I serve you.”

He says the words tonelessly. He has said them before. He will say them again.

“Then you have a moral code.”

“Yes,” he says carefully, wondering what Rosa might do to exploit this. “I do.”

“Huh. Didn't expect my new toy to come with a rule book.”

Charon takes a breath but does not reply. He's heard similar comments, yes. _You cannot let it bother you. This was your entire life before Ahzrukhal; just because you've had sixty years to forget what it's like to have a new employer does not mean that you can't remember._

Damn smoothskin.

He hears a crinkle of paper and glances over. Rosa is flipping through the contract, her brow furrowed. What is she thinking? It's strange to look at an employer and not immediately know. It makes him anxious, tense.

“Hm,” Rosa murmurs. “It says here that you're conditioned to stay close by? So I can't send you away to do missions for me?”

He clears his throat. “It is... not recommended.”

“Why? What's the deal with that?”

“It becomes painful to be away from an employer for any longer than three days,” he says reluctantly. “It was implemented to heighten vigilance. If you are out of my sight, I cannot protect you; therefore, I am designed to be uncomfortable if you are not nearby.”

“Fascinating.”

Charon doesn't like her tone. Definitely some kind of sadistic interest.

He's surprised, though. They are still walking through DC, and he hasn't seen any signs of Super Mutants. He knows that there haven't been many around lately, but he'd thought he'd see at least a corpse or two. He takes another breath and adjusts the shotgun strap. Maybe their journey won't be as dangerous as he had thought.

“Permission to request information,” he says.

“Granted.”

“What is our destination?”

She scoffs. “I thought that would be an easy guess. My base, my fortress, whatever you want to call it—Nevergreen Mills, Mariatown, Spic Central—doesn't matter to me. All you have to know is that it belongs to me, and me alone.”

“Understood,” Charon says grimly. _And I, along with the rest._

“Hm,” Rosa says, and slides the contract back into its envelope. Charon watches his lifeline get put away, and averts his eyes when the raider queen sticks it down her bra. He gets a slightly queasy feeling thinking about it stuck to her breast. Sick. He doesn't want any part of him near her, but here he is, closer than he'd prefer, and with the sole most important part of him resting just above her black and twisted heart.

He glances at the five men around them; two taking point, two on either side, and one bringing up the rear. Look like typical wasteland thugs to him at first glance, but they're hardened, battle-ready, and clear-eyed. They have the advantage over just about anyone else they'll meet in the wastes because they're sober, not drunk or strung-out on Jet or Psycho. Might not give them the crazed bravery or whip-like reflexes of someone high on combat drugs, but they'll be better off overall.

He's interested to note that they're men of all ethnic backgrounds, especially because Rosa makes such a big deal out of her Mexican heritage. He'd thought that her echelon would all be Hispanics, but there's a black man here, as well as an ancient white man with lighter blue eyes than Charon himself and a long gray beard—to his right is a young man with flaming red hair and a bright yellow bandanna. He's whistling cheerfully, and it is such a bizarre contrast to the grim mood and wary silence that he can't help but stare.

He notices Charon looking, then, and asks, “Hey, Rosa, is Scalper and the rest, ya know...”

“Dead,” Rosa affirms. “And very quickly, too.”

“Oh, okay,” the kid says.

“Why, you miss him?” Rosa shoots back.

“Him?” the redhead scoffs. “He owed me thirty caps for our last poker game. Son-of-a-bitch went over and asked for a loan and lost it all, and he still hasn't paid me back.”

Rosa chuckles. “Guess he got what was coming to him, huh?”

 _Hm._ So, Rosa was planning to get rid of those men for awhile. It definitely sounds that way, with how his employer and the kid are bantering back and forth. Or maybe that's just their callousness showing through.

The redhead glances at Charon again. “So, your new guy, he...”

“Oh yes,” she answers with relish. “He's a killing machine.”

“Well, you got what you wanted, right?”

Rosa only nods.

Silence. Charon checks his surroundings, unable to stop himself from maintaining a relentless vigilance. Looks at the sky, checking for warnings of acid rain, then at the shadows beyond broken windows, and listens for distant footsteps beneath the hissing wind.

The redhead goes back to whistling again. Charon thinks that the tune is almost familiar, maybe a drinking song he's heard once or twice, but the tune is never quite close enough to be able to remember exactly what it might be from. Each time he thinks he remembers the words, there's a key change or a tempo change and Charon loses what progress he might have made. It is incredibly frustrating but there is nothing else for Charon to do but keep glancing around, ready at any moment to give his life for his employer.

And then, with a suddenness that makes Charon flinch and reach for his weapon, the kid shouts, “Hey, Hothouse! How much did Scalper owe you again? Sixty caps? Eighty?”

“Shut the fuck up, Jerry,” the black man snaps.

“Man, too bad,” the kid continues, and grins and cocks his head as if waiting for another retort. “All those caps...”

The black man—Hothouse—shakes his head without answering, and everyone goes silent again. It seems like no one wants to engage the kid... Jerry...? in his banter.

Charon does not blame them. He has never liked talkative employers. He has always found out more about them than he has ever wanted to know; about their conquests, their atrocities. And he has always been forced to stay silent on the matter, biding his time, waiting impatiently for their demise.

He hopes that Rosa's is soon.

His employer does not speak to either of them this time. She has a severe expression on her face as they walk, a sort of scowl, as she takes in their surroundings; despite her formidable guard, she is not the type to relax. She is nearly as attentive as Charon himself.

The kid is whistling again. He feels his eye twitch.

Up, up, up, and then a little fluttering dip, a few notes down, a few halting notes in the same tone, a staccato tempo, and a repeat of the whole line. A third, this time switching halfway in between to an entirely different song—

“Jerry, I fucking swear to god,” one of the raiders growls.

“What?” he demands. “You insulting my whistling or something? I can carry a tune. You should be thankful, gettin' to listen to me. Beats the silence.”

“I'd take the silence _any day_ over you,” the guard at the back calls.

Jerry mutters something rude but quiets down, readjusting his rifle strap before untying his bright yellow bandanna. He wipes his sweaty forehead with it and then ties it again. It is in a slightly different place, and his fluffy red hair has a dent in it from where it had been resting before.

“Ah,” Rosa says, drawing Charon's attention. “My favorite sight.”

They've reached the edge of the DC ruins and are standing at the top of a hill, the hot breeze on their necks, the sun burning down, and about one thousand meters away lie the Megaton ruins.

 

* * *

 

 

Once upon a time, a girl from Vault 101 crawled out of the ground and made this place her home.

She stood with the wastelanders and brought them love and water.

She befriended them and protected them.

And somewhere, that girl died.

 

Maybe alone in a filthy apartment building with a dirty needle of Psycho in her veins.

Maybe while squinting down the barrel of a gun.

Maybe she died when her father did, lost to the Enclave in a fruitless attempt to stop them.

Or maybe, after slaughtering one too many raiders, she decided to become one.

 

That girl is gone, and instead beside Charon is the woman who killed every last soul in Megaton.

 

* * *

 

 

Looking at the sickening remains of that town, still smoking and glowing ten years after the slaughter, the hair on the back of his neck raises. More out of tension and anticipation than any sort of fear or horror. He's seen too many atrocities to have such a visceral reaction. He bites back a growl, and instead settles for an expression of unyielding stoicism. _She will die for what she's done._

Rosa's men don't reply, and Charon looks sideways at Hothouse. He's got the same sort of hard expression that makes Charon think that either he doesn't approve of the destruction, or that he doesn't particularly care about it at all. Jerry is uncharacteristically silent as well, and looks at Megaton nervously.

Eventually, though, his twitchiness overcomes him, and he bursts out, “Hey, boss, we ain't gettin' _too_ close, are we? I ain't looking forward to any more mutations, okay?”

“We're skirting it,” Rosa says. “For the sake of my guard. Charon, take a few minutes in there. You're still bleeding.”

He looks at her blankly, and she raises her eyebrows. _Oh. Right._ To be honest, he'd forgotten that he'd been shot in the arm. He's become so numb to pain by now that it feels almost wrong if some part of him isn't hurting.

Haltingly, unwillingly, he rumbles, “You will be... safe... without me?”

She smirks, as if she knows how much it cost him, to have to choke those words out of his mouth.

“Yes,” she says, “I will. Stay in Megaton until your wound closes over.”

He heads away from them, towards the smog that hangs over the town ruins to this day. It's been over a decade, but the dust swirling nearby still holds a suspicious glow. He should heal incredibly quickly—but Rosa made a mistake with her orders—she asked him to stay until he was healed. If he wanted to, that means he could perhaps stick a finger into the wound and stay in Megaton indefinitely.

That would be foolish, though, because Rosa would surely come after him eventually, and if she did not, the pain of being away from his employer would drive him to seek her out.

So instead, Charon steps through the mangled gates, looking at the ruined buildings. There is barely anything left to look at besides collapsed houses and rubble; at one of the remaining pieces of wall is the shadow of a man scorched into the cement. Yet another unlucky resident.

Charon feels pity and hatred stirring within his chest. _These people had no idea what was coming. Had no idea that they would be betrayed._

He pauses at the sight of something moving feebly, and wonders if some non-resistant creature, like a wolf, had wandered into the ruins—but it moves once more and gives a static-y croak and Charon decides that it is not a biological lifeform.

The movement repeats itself, and Charon comes closer, his boots crunching on the gravel, and halts before the pathetic wreckage of a Mr. Handy.

“Madame...” it keeps repeating, and one of its arms gives a slight jerk. “Madame... madame... madame...”

To his horror, he realizes that this thing must have been malfunctioning in such a way for the past ten years.

Charon shoots it without a second thought, and the machine falls silent.

He growls wordlessly, gives one last look to the smoking heap of metal, turns his back, and leaves. His arm is healed now, and the place where he had been hit is just another pink scar over his battered flesh.

 

* * *

 

Evergreen Mills, or _Nevergreen Mills,_ as Rosa has apparently renamed it, is not as he remembered. He had visited on several occasions, because of different employers, and he had seen it undergoing both neglect and repair over the years, the ancient and crumbling buildings shored up with new cement, windows boarded over, strips of colored cloth hanging to serve as decoration.

Now, though, the entire layout has changed. There's a large building off to the left, and a few guard towers, but the remaining buildings are smaller, spread out. He assigns them names—barracks, weaponsmith, mess hall, and he supposes that the remaining few are something like villas, set aside for her favored men and their wives. And one of them must be her own, unless she changed the cavern system inside into her own living space. He highly doubts that it's still a brothel.

When the guard at the gate sees them coming, he waves and shouts something back into the town, and a young Hispanic boy comes racing out to greet them. Charon tenses at the rate that the boy is speeding towards them, but no one seems bothered; two of them head in without another word to Rosa, and the boy skids to a halt in front of Jerry.

“You're back!”

“Hey, hey, my man!” Jerry enthuses, ruffling the kid's hair. “What's happenin'?”

“Nothing,” the kid says. “It's been _boring.”_

“How's Dad doing?”

Charon wonders if it's an adoptive father or if the term is meant loosely, because the two kids look nothing alike. One is pale, the other is dusky—one is a redhead, the other has jet black hair. It's impossible that the pair could be related.

“Same as usual.”

“Glad to hear it,” Rosa says, tossing her shotgun to Hothouse. “He on his way out, then? I'm surprised he wasn't hanging around out here. He'd sounded intrigued about Charon.”

“Jealous,” Hothouse mutters. “Probably just pissed off that you don't think he can handle protecting you anymore.”

“Not,” an older man rasps, coming to a halt in front of them, “that I think you need protecting. You can more than handle yourself, Rosa Marie.”

Charon notes that the smile on his employer's face is genuine. “Jericho. Nice of you to join us.”

 

Jericho is old. Older than most wastelanders, older than people can hope to become, especially if they don't find the dubious fortune of becoming a ghoul. Jericho is not a ghoul, though, and his skin shows it. He's entirely bald, and his face is a mess of wrinkles and scars. But his eyes are still sharp and hardened, and although Charon thinks that the man is pushing eighty, he's as quick as a man half his age.

“Glad to see you brought both my boys back,” Jericho grunts.

“Of course,” Rosa says. “You didn't think that I'd have put one of 'em in Scalper's group?”

“Thought that Jerry might have pushed you to it,” Jericho says, giving the redhead a sharp push. “Well? You been a nuisance again, boy?”

The kid only shrugs and grins.

“Not enough for me to make him run the gauntlet,” Rosa says. “And it's one hell of a gauntlet. Speaking of, meet Charon. Charon, meet Jericho. He's my second-in-command. He keeps this place nailed down while I go out.”

Charon stares at him, hoping to intimidate, but the raider is not cowed. Instead, he looks irked, dismissive. Knowing, presumably, that no matter how much he taunts and goads, Charon will likely never be able to cause him harm. _A dog on a leash._

And no matter how much he might despise it, that's all he'll ever be. He is not the type to fool himself. He is not a human, and barely a ghoul. A rabid animal, caged up behind a scrap of paper. He has his so-called morals, of course, his code, but he attempts to adhere to it numbly, more out of principle than anything else. What might he do if he were freed? What kind of monster might he become then?

One thing is for sure, though. If he were free, he'd kill Rosa. And Jericho would be next.

 

 


	3. Little Girl Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charon meets the Lone Wanderer's daughter.

The old man hawks and spits. “Don't mind me if I don't shake its hand.”

Rosa says, “I wasn't expecting you to.”

Charon stares at the raider, his hand on the hilt of his knife. The man gives him a dismissive once-over, not even tensing or reaching for a weapon of his own when he sees how alert Charon is; it's clear that he doesn't feel threatened by him.  _Damn._ Why is it that no one who  _needs_ to feel threatened by him ever does? He'd certainly have had an easier life if Ahzrukhal had a little more fear, but... then again, look where that old bastard ended up. Laying in a puddle of his own brains and guts.

“It ain't speaking. Is it mute or something?”

“No,” Rosa says, “but he's quiet.”

“Well, that rotting piece of shit is here and Scalper's not, so I guess your new pet is as good as they say.”

“Better. He managed to impress me.”

“Well now,” Jericho snorts, “you gonna replace me with him, then?”

“You know you're irreplaceable, Jer,” Rosa says, sounding a little bit teasing. “Now. Everything still running as smoothly as before?”

“You know it.”

“And Bumble?”

“In her room. Spent most of the day tryin' to teach that dumbass slave kid how to play chess. Waste of time. Think she's reading now.”

His master rolls her eyes. “Alright, then. You're all dismissed. Charon, follow me.”

 _As you wish._ He'd say the words out loud, but he'd really rather not waste his breath on her.

Charon had begun mapping Nevergreen Mills as soon as he'd laid eyes on it, but now he's getting the full tour. He wonders, for a moment, why he's putting so much effort into it. Is it because his conditioning is making him, or because he's hoping to exploit the layout if his contract ever changes hands? Well, it doesn't particularly matter. As soon as he's able, he's going to burn this place to the ground. Evergreen Mills to Nevergreen Mills to _ashes._ Hopefully no raiders will get the bright idea of building here again.

They make a beeline for the main building; Charon's eyes flick over the small groups of people walking back and forth. He's surprised that not all of them look like raiders. There are a few men in regular clothing, a few young women that appear to be housewives. Right before they pass through the doorway, Jericho scoops up a giggling girl that throws her arms around his neck.

“Daddy!”

“Hey there, little lady, how's my-”

The door shuts, cutting off the rest of the grizzled old man's words.

 _Hm._ A child, at his age? He wonders, grimly, what kind of woman would be willing to bear the child of an eighty-year old man. Probably another raider, finding a separate way to climb the ranks in the Spanish Rose's army. Marrying into rank, after all, is far easier than murdering your way to the top.

His musings, however, are interrupted by a clattering of footsteps. The foyer of the main building is unexpectedly grand, with a princess staircase and four sets of double doors that branch off to different sections of the building, so it's not immediately clear where the sound is coming from. But within a few moments, a young woman comes dashing down the stairs, and halts at the bottom, her chest heaving.

She's beautiful. Auburn hair and hazel eyes, the kind a man could get lost in, and smooth white skin unmarked by scars or sun damage. Charon reflects that after sixty years in Underworld he might find anything beautiful, but he knows that this girl is, for sure.

“You're back!” the girl cries out, and comes forward. “And... you found him?”

“Mm. Bumble, this is Charon. Charon, this is my daughter, Bumble.”

He tries not to react with surprise. _A daughter?_ It must not be widely-known that Rosa has a daughter; he's certainly never heard of it, and he's been listening to Three Dog complain about her on the radio for the past ten years.

“I adopted her from Little Lamplight,” Rosa continues, putting her hands into her pockets. “Didn't think it was right for someone so young to be sent off to the slavers.”

Bumble's face falls at that, a flurry of emotions crossing her face: grief, anger, sorrow, pain, eventually smoothing over into neutrality. Charon wonders what that must be like, to be the only one spared. To have been saved so arbitrarily. To have been taken in by a monster.

“But I've been wondering if that was such a good idea,” Rosa continues. “Jericho told me that you've been causing some trouble lately. Hanging around that boy again.”

Bumble bites her lip. “MacCready?”

“Yes, him. You spend far too much time with him. Teaching him things. Disobeying me.” Rosa pauses, and her eyes glitter dangerously. “It's getting tiring, having to discipline you. I think sometimes about how much easier my life would be if I didn't have a daughter to look after?”

“Mama...” Bumble starts unsteadily.

“So, I thought, maybe I should find out?”

She looks at Charon, and smiles.

_No._

“Charon, would you-”

_No!_

“-please, as slowly as possible-”

_I won't do it! I won't!_

“-choke my daughter to death? I want-”

_I don't want to do this!_

“-to watch her suffer. So do it slowly. Do it with your bare hands.”

Bumble's face reflects the shock and horror that Charon's cannot. “Mommy, no, please! I swear I'll be good, I promise, please-”

“Are you sure?” he growls. “This cannot be undone.”

He's just as shocked as Bumble, but perhaps he shouldn't be. Perhaps he should have expected it. Having known about how brutal Rosa is, why should he be surprised that she would order such a thing?

But maybe he thought that even she would have some semblance of maternal love.

“I'm sure. Draw it out for a long time. Choke her until she goes unconscious, wake her back up, and start again. I'm looking forward to this. It's been a long time in coming.”

Bumble is crying now, the reality of her situation finally sinking in. “Mommy, please, please-”

She's sobbing, throwing herself at her mother.

Charon holds himself still.

“Please-”

 _No._ It's too much. It's far too much. Kill a drunkard, stab a raider, watch a trader's shiny innards slop out onto the floor; those are all things that he can do without blinking or flinching. Old hat by now. But kill a defenseless kid? To kill his employer's own _child?_ Even while she's sobbing and begging for her life?

No. He stands where he is, fighting his orders, and grits his teeth. A bead of sweat runs down the side of his face. The orders press into him, as suffocating as his own hands around Bumble's throat, but he refuses to move a muscle.

Another bead of sweat joins the first. With luck, his heart will give out and he'll die before he has to kill this girl.

Too much. No more sins, no more pain, no more self-loathing. He's not going to go any lower. He's at his breaking point. Surely going feral would be better than this.

“Charon?” Rosa presses. “What are you doing? Move it.”

Shit. The more she speaks, the more the pressure mounts.

“No,” he grunts, and his hands begin to shake.

“No?” Rosa repeats. “Are you... are you defying me too?”

“Won't,” Charon grunts, the pain rising to a flood of agony, “won't do it.”

“It was an order.”

This time the pain mounts so high that words fail him, and he lets out a hiss of pain. His body moves forward of its own accord, hands already reaching for Bumble's neck, and he manages to bring his arm back to his mouth and bites down hard, the taste of blood filling his mouth. His other hand falters, and he uses the slight edge of control to force his arm back to his side. He can't step away, though, and he feels himself tilting forward, his posture menacing and violent.

He bites down harder.

“Stop.”

The order cuts through the fog, and he collapses to his knees, panting and exhausted. His arm throbs, his mouth bloody.

Rosa is smiling now, and with one arm she draws Bumble tight to her side. The girl, still sobbing, presses her face into her mother's chest.

“You disobeyed me,” Rosa says.

“Yes,” Charon grunts.

“Why?”

 _What an idiotic question._ “Because I did not want to do it.”

“Hm,” Rosa says. “To the extent that you'd injure yourself? Interesting.”

Charon takes a deep breath. He wonders if all this was for nothing, if Rosa will simply gut her child before him, knowing that he will do everything in his power to keep himself from harming her.

“Well, I suppose the details don't matter,” Rosa says. “What _does_ matter is that you put out a great deal of effort to try to spare her. And I am thankful for that.”

She pauses, letting her words sink in, and then continues, “From this day forward, you'll be Bumble's personal bodyguard. Protect her with your life, as you would protect me. I expect you to put in the same effort with looking after her as you did trying not to harm her. Do you understand me?”

“You... do not want me to kill her?” Charon asks, frowning.

Rosa scoffs. “God, no. Bumble is my only child. If you'd even touched her, I'd have tied you out in the sun for a week. The fact that you did not is... mutually beneficial.”

She halts, and then puts her other arm around Bumble. “You okay, sweetie?”

The girl only cries harder, clinging to her mother like a lifeline.

“Shh, shh. It's okay. I love you, baby, I'd never let anyone hurt you,” Rosa soothes. “I didn't mean it. You're okay.”

Charon turns away from the display, feeling nauseated. It does not escape him that this showering of motherly love could be just as false as her apparently cold-blooded orders just a few moments before. _He_ certainly had believed that she wanted Bumble dead, and so did Bumble, apparently. Either she is the world's best actress, or...

The expression on her face is filled with gentle concern, fierce love. _Is that a lie as well?_

“Go back up to your room and calm down,” Rosa says. “Charon will look after you. I'll be back later, but I have to go speak with Lupita about payroll. I'll be by in an hour or so, and I'll bring us some hot cocoa and snack cakes. Hm? What do you say?”

Bumble nods tremulously, her eyes puffy and blood-shot. She is not a pretty crier; Charon does not think that anyone is. Her cheeks are flushed and even as he watches, a few more tear tracks run down her face.

“There's my good girl,” Rosa soothes, and nods to the staircase. “Go on. I'll see you soon.”

She turns away without another word and walks out, letting in a breeze of hot air before the door slams closed behind her. Charon moves to follow, but his feet stick in place.

 _Shit._ He's been ordered to guard Bumble, but Rosa still has his contract.

Bumble looks at him, more attention than she's given him yet. “Ah... uhm... thank you.”

Charon blinks.

“For not killing me. Or, I mean, for not _trying_ to kill me. And... I'm sorry that my mom put you through that. She's...”

Bumble waves a hand, weakly, and Charon nods. _I know what you mean._

“Anyway, she said she'd meet me in my room, so if you wanna follow me?”

Charon obeys, his leather-soled boots unnaturally loud on the princess staircase as they ascend. He keeps watch, his hand on his knife. In a town full of raiders, anything could happen. But Bumble's posture is relaxed, even though she's still holding her arms around herself. It's clear that she's not expecting anything bad to happen to her; in fact, as they reach the top of the stairs, she is hardly tensed at all. As if the more distance she creates between her and her mother, the better she feels.

“Almost everyone lives in the _cuartel,”_ Bumble says, her tongue flicking over the word with flawless pronunciation. “The fourth floor is for people of higher rank, like me. Mama has a suite beside mine, but she almost never uses it. Jericho and his family lives up here too, and so does Flagstaff and Loch, but Crags has his own villa.”

“I do not know these men,” Charon grunts.

“Oh, yes, you do. They're Mama's personal guard. Flagstaff, Hothouse, Jerry, Crags, and Loch. The five men that she came in with. She never goes anywhere without at least two of them.”

“Hm.” Those are names to remember, then. When he has time, he should go down through each room and familiarize himself with the layout. How many to each suite, who lives where, and what exits he might use in a hurry.

“There's guest quarters here, too-” Bumble points vaguely to the right- “and we have a few other people who live up here too. Most of them are related to Jericho.”

Charon asks, slowly, “Jericho has... a large family?”

Bumble snorts, jerking open the door to a spacious suite that he assumes is hers. “Are you kidding me? Jericho thinks it's his life's mission to single-handedly repopulate the wasteland. Nine kids and a tenth on the way.”

Charon feels his face twist in disgust. So that _was_ his biological daughter outside. “He is old.”

Bumble laughs. “Yeah, he is. Doesn't stop him, though.”

Their conversation pauses, and Charon glances around. It is a lovely bedroom. Pre-war in its decoration and lavishness. A queen-sized bed with a boxsprings and double mattress, a brand-new quilt and set of crisp, clean linens. White fluffy pillows. A worn stuffed teddy bear, and a newer hand-stitched yao guai plush. A big, saggy deathclaw with a wide, silly grin of felt teeth lounges at the foot of her bed, button eyes mismatched.

“So,” Bumble says, sitting down on her bed, “tell me about yourself.”

He blinks. “You... would like to hear about... me?”

“Mm. You _are_ my bodyguard, aren't you?” Bumble pulls off her shoes and kicks her sock feet against the bedframe. “I've never had a real bodyguard before. Most of the time it's just Jericho or Flagstaff with me. Sometimes Bastian. But I don't really have an official guard. I think it's because no one's stupid enough to try to hurt me, not with how protective Mama is. I don't know why she assigned you to me now.”

“I do not know either,” Charon admits.

She gives him a look that he can't quite decipher. “So... tell me about yourself. Are you pre-War or not?”

“I do not know,” he says.

“You... don't?”

“I think I am,” he says, “but my memories are... fogged. A very long time ago, I was brainwashed into becoming... this. My earliest memories are hazy. I remember fighting and killing. And then as they become more clear with time, it is only more fighting and killing. For the past sixty years, I have served under Ahzukhal of the Ninth Circle in Underworld. And now, I am serving your mother.”

Bumble shakes her head. “I'm sorry.”

“Hm?” That's not something he can remember hearing often.

“You're just like me,” she says, her eyes intent on his own. “We're both my mother's playthings. Her toys. She honestly doesn't need either of us. She just keeps us for amusement. We're alike.”

Has anyone tried to empathize with Charon before? He hadn't known that it was possible.

“As I'm sure you've seen,” Bumble continues, “Mama can handle herself. She doesn't even need her guards, but she's... sort of paranoid. You'll want to remember that, because she's crazy about security. Especially when it comes to me. Like I said, I'm never in any danger, but she makes sure I've always got someone looking after me. Sometimes I think that Jericho spends more time with me than he does with his own daughter.”

Bumble pauses, then chatters, “I like Jericho, most of the time. He's kind of scary though. He kills a lot of people. He does my mother's dirty work because newcomers never expect an old man to be so quick and tough. But he is, and it's really intimidating. And Mama's nice too, in her own way. Maybe I should hate her, for... for what she did. For everything. But I don't. I love her, and she loves me too. She does a lot of things wrong, but I really do think that she cares about me.”

 _That_ catches Charon's attention. He frowns, leaning against the wall. “Why do you think that?”

“Why I think that my Mama loves me?” she shrugs. “It's like any other thing, isn't it? I just do. She cares about me. She always brings me the best things. She tries to spend time with me and be nice to me. She tries really hard to protect me. And... she brought me MacCready.”

“MacCready?” Charon asks.

“He's my... friend,” Bumble says hesitantly. “He was the mayor of Little Lamplight. When Mama took over and enslaved us, we all got split up and sent out. Except for me, of course. Mama took me back to Paradise Falls with her, and I stayed with her for a long time before she took over the Mills and brought me here. By then, all my friends were sold off. After a year, she actually asked me if I missed anyone. If there was anyone I wanted her to save. I asked for Lucy, but... she... she was already dead. MacCready was my second pick. So Mama tracked him down and brought him here, all the way from Virginia.”

Bumble smiles, a little sadly, and finishes, “Mama wouldn't do that for me if she didn't love me.”

Charon considers that. Based on what he's seen from Rosa, would she really go to such lengths for a mere toy? Someone that she does not love or need?

_She killed four of her own men to get you, didn't she?_

But he doesn't argue. Bumble is a prisoner here, a bird in a gilded cage, a make-believe daughter for a madwoman of a mother. Her real family is dead, and her friends were stolen away from her, enslaved, and worked to the grave.

If she needs to believe that Rosa loves her, then he will not take that away from her.

He will never take that away from her.

 


	4. Waters of Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> henlo reders  
> im back

“Charon, do you want to go take a bath?”

Charon halts midstep, halfway across the room, and stares. He blinks at her stupidly, his brain overclocking as he tries to place the context of the sudden question.

It's been a full day since his employment with Rosa, and he hasn't seen much of her, which is both a disappointment and a great relief. Disappointment because his contract is constantly itching to know where she is, forcing him to glance out the window in Bumble's room to the yard below, needing reassurance that she's okay. The relief, of course, is self-explanatory.

Baths, though. Did Rosa say anything about baths? Do people _usually_ take baths together? He doesn't think so, but then again, he's hard-pressed to remember after living in the Underworld for so long. Almost no one in the ghoul town bathed or felt any need to do so; Charon doesn't even know what it feels like anymore. Is this normal in this town? Nothing comes to mind.

_“What?”_

“A bath,” Bumble repeats. “It's fun. Come on.”

“Uh,” he grunts, “look, kid. I'm supposed to be guarding you, not... bathing.”

Especially not the way that it _sounds_ as if she means, as if it's... a _shared_ bath. _What the hell? What kind of childhood has this girl had?_

“It's okay,” Bumble says, “there's guards at the bath, too.”

“Bumble,” he says, trying to keep the strain from his voice, “I do not think your mother-”

“Would approve? Hm... maybe not. She gets snippety about water purity and all...” Bumble frowns, seemingly indecisive, and then brightens. “Well, that's what the guards at the bath are for! We can ask them, see what they think—I'd rather not bother Mama more than I have to.”

“Very well,” Charon says wearily, seeing no way out. “But, perhaps I would be better suited to guarding.”

“Don't be silly,” Bumble says. “It'll be good for your skin.”

She bites her lip, looking at him, and then muses, “The baths are filled with mineral water. We've never had a ghoul in them, but surely it would help, right? With the stuff on your skin?”

Bumble reaches out for his arm, as if she's going to touch him, and Charon flinches back, his orders keeping him from lashing out instinctively. The girl stops, and gives him an awkward smile. “Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I won't mention it again.”

“You are speaking of the infections,” Charon states, and looks at his bare left arm. Indeed, it is the worst-damaged part of his body, the primary culprit being the dripping ooze on the side of his bicep. For whatever reason, it has been constantly inflamed since his ghoulification, and itches constantly. It is the reason that he eventually became irritated enough that he cut off the left arm of his armor, for better access. A thick yellow slurry weeps out of the wound when he squeezes the muscle.

Bumble cringes.

“It is no matter,” Charon says. “Hardly a concern.”

“Well, there's no harm in trying,” Bumble says, and he thinks that she is trying not to sound discouraged. Did he overstep himself? He supposes he has.

“I will accompany you,” Charon says. _Though I have little choice._

 

* * *

 

 

The guards at the bath are fools.

This is the only conclusion he can come to, as he sits stewing in the steaming mineral water, entirely nude, beside the daughter of his contract-bearer.

“Just _one_ little hit.”

“Fuck you.”

“Rosa won't notice.”

“She _always_ notices. You know how nasty that shit smells? I prefer Psycho for a reason. Just because your fuckin' nostrils are burnt out from huffing Jet all day long doesn't mean that Rosa's are too. Now shut the fuck up and do some goddamn guarding.”

“Badger—”

“I said, shut the fuck up, Roe.”

The guards fall silent, and Charon affords a glance at his charge. The cavern is dimly-lit, to promote relaxation, Charon supposes, and the lighting along with the thick tendrils of steam curling up from the water make it difficult to see anything submerged past two inches. He's immensely grateful for this; not only is he feeling awkward being around a pubescent girl, she has to be naked no less, and Charon has had limited contact with nude women at all.

Usually when he saw them they were dead. Bodies bloated and rotting out in the wastes, stripped of their clothes and belongings by raiders and scavengers. Oozing genitals swollen to bursting, missing eyes, gaping mouths.

There are a lot of dead women in the apocalypse. The world is not kind.

This is different, and it isn't just because Bumble is alive; it's embarrassing, and he has no idea how to act or what he should do. His second time being naked in front of a female, although fortunately this is under drastically different circumstances.

“What do you think?” she asks.

He blinks. He is not usually asked to give an opinion. To give any kind of response, really. “I,” he says, surprised, and stops. _Is it proper to have conversations in this sort of setting?_ Their voices echo off the ceiling. Clears his throat. “It is good.”

“Oh, I know, right? Isn't this place wonderful? Back in Little Lamplight, we had water too, but it was really cold. But it was okay because when MacCready was mayor, no one made us take baths. Lucy would yell at us if we didn't, though. So did Princess.”

Bumble pauses in her chattering and an expression of tired pain crosses her face. “That was a long time ago though. I was so little. It's almost like it was a dream.”

The steam shifts and dances in the air. Charon watches it, sitting a few feet away from Bumble on the rough-hewn rocky shelf. He can make out patterns in the fog, watching it gather and rise.

He hears water dripping, deeper into the caves. Imagines how long it must take for the water to condense of the stalactites, how much water it would take for beads of moisture to slip down the slick rock and fall into the distant pools below.

He wasn't lying when he said that it was a good experience. He feels more relaxed here than he has anywhere else, despite his discomfort with the lack of clothing. The hot water seeps into his flesh, warming his body, and the constant itching of his wounds fades down to a dull throb.

He slips deeper into the water, holding onto the ledge with his fingers and forearms, and lets the water rush over his shoulders. Poking around cautiously, he finds a toehold and stays there. The rest of the water is very deep.

“The hot springs weren't always here,” Bumble says at last. “Did you know that?”

Charon grunts out a negative.

“Mama knew we were gonna get a lot of people, so she had Isaac and Bastian start digging out the rest of the cave. They were using a pickax on the rocks down around in this area, where we are now, and all of a sudden... _fwoom!”_

Charon flinches at the sudden exclamation, despite knowing that it was coming, and reaches for a combat knife that is not there. Bumble giggles at his surprise.

He does not think she would be laughing if she knew how instinctive his killing urges are.

“All of this hot water burst out of nowhere. Isaac got scalded pretty badly. I think it was hotter then, when it first started coming out, because there was nowhere for the heat to go. They ran out of there.” Bumble laughs again. “Mama was furious when she found out that the cave wasn't good for living in anymore. Almost all of it is filled up with water now, and the upper sections of it aren't good either because of how wet everything is. So we just use it for relaxation now.”

“You used to live in this cave?” Charon asks.

“Yeah. Mama and myself, and Jericho and his favorite kids.”

Charon supposes he shouldn't be too surprised that the grizzled old raider outside would choose some of his children over the others.

“That's when Mama started working really hard on building the rest of the buildings,” Bumble continues. “We'd started, and they looked fine, but they weren't sturdy enough for her to want us to live in. So they got done really quickly.”

There's a loud splash from the other end of the cavern, and Charon tenses. The female guard—Badger—has her hands on her hips, glaring, as her fellow guard thrashes around in the water, giggling.

“I slipped!” he shouts.

“You dumb fucker, you did _not._ You dumbass.”

“Guess I'm stuck in here now,” Roe says, grinning, and chucks his boots at her; Charon notices that despite the man's 'accident', he'd managed to throw his gun and ammo belt off before he came into contact with the water.

Bumble notices him watching and mutters, smiling, “Mama assigned them to the baths for a reason. They're... not really good for much else.”

He can see why.

“For fuck's sake.” The pink-haired raider is looking more and more irritated. “We're on guard duty! It's not like we're alone! We've got the goddamn kid in here!”

“Ah, but she's got her own little bodyguard,” Roe says, casting Charon a secretive grin. He throws his pants at Badger next, sopping wet. His socks follow, and then his boxers smack Badger across the face with a wet slap.

“Oh, you are _so_ paying for that.”

Roe lets out a shrill scream of fake terror and splashes away, running through the waist-deep water until he lurches forward and takes off into an inelegant breast stroke. Badger is quick to strip, irritated but efficient, and dives after him. They pass by Bumble and Charon, and just as Roe nears the far wall, Badger snags his shoulder and shoves him underwater.

“Gah!” Roe squawks when he's finally let up. “You she-devil! I knew you wanted me dead!”

“If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have let you resurface,” Badger points out.

Roe squeezes her left breast in response.

“Get the _fuck_ off me! We've got the kid in here!”

“Rosa doesn't like you swearing in front of her.”

“Well, she sure as fuck wouldn't want us to screw in front of her, either! So knock it off,” Badger growls, and turns her back on him. “Goddamn pervert.”

Roe only laughs.

They are familiar with each other in a way that Charon has rarely seen before, especially amongst raiders. So many people refuse to drop their barriers, terrified of vulnerability. Badger and Roe are different. He can see the ease in their expressions, stretching between them like a tangible connection.

It doesn't strike him to envy them until he realizes that a normal person would feel envious. He thinks of Bumble, sitting beside him, and wonders if the only child of a raider queen could ever truly find happiness with another person.

He wonders what it would be like. To have a friend. An equal.

Instead, he asks, raising his voice to the pair of raiders, “Is it wise to leave your posts?”

Badger lifts her arms in graceless stretch as she treads water. “It doesn't really matter, no. We're in the safest part of Spic Central. Behind the barricades, past the whole goddamn army of raiders, in these caves? Nawh, Roe and I are just here to make sure that no one fucks in the baths.”

Charon grimaces.

“It happens,” Bumble says, frowning. “Isn't that gross? Now _that_ she was mad about. She made them do a week's worth of hard labor each. And Badger and Roe were sent here to keep things under control.”

“We're very good at it,” Roe says seriously.

Charon stares at him, unimpressed, until the other man dives back underwater.

“I'm glad you decided to come,” Bumble says.

He shifts his attention to her. He's... rarely had someone speak to him so much. He wonders at this for a moment, that she seems to have no fear of him. True, he did as much as he could to protect her, but she doesn't show the slightest bit of disgust when she looks at him.

“I love the baths, and I just knew you'd like them too. This is my favorite place. If he has time, I take MacCready here, too. He really likes it. Maybe all three of us can go sometime.”

 

* * *

 

 

Over the course of the day, Charon hears more about MacCready than he would like to. _Everything._ It's clear that the girl is besotted. She describes his personality (half sullen and brooding, half sweet and sensitive), his appearance (Byron-esque in his dark and entrancing beauty), and at least several dozen other unrelated statements about his character or mannerisms in general. Charon listens to her dutifully, and thinks that he will be nothing short of disappointed if this MacCready does not arrive in a thunderstorm of black skies lit up with blinding lightning. If he sees a man descend from heaven, he will be less inclined to think it the Christ and instead expect it to be Bumble's dearest friend.

True to her word, Rosa arrives some time later with hot chocolate and stale cakes. He is not surprised when the two of them ignore him, so he takes the time to pace around the room, and eventually, settle himself against the wall.

The déjà vu is so disorienting that he nearly stumbles. All at once, he feels himself back in the Ninth Circle, and sees the layout of the bar overlapped across the room. Sees Ahzrukhal smirking, at the bar, as he slips a sedative into a woman's drink. Daring him to say a single word. Sees the Jet-huffers and drunkards sleeping on the tables.

He blinks, and the world snaps back into focus. Rosa and Bumble are drinking from their chipped mugs and he feels the weight of the years press into him with more force than he has ever experienced before.

He slumps against the wall. Everything is the same.

Nothing is the same.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't dead, I was just reading Mass Effect: Andromeda fanfiction. Also, Dishonored fanfiction. And Les Mis fanfiction. Basically, I was sick for like an eternity and just read fanfiction the entire time. I sort of wish I were still sick so that I could keep doing nothing but read, but that is not very responsible as an author who managed weekly or biweekly updates for like 3-4 months.  
> Uh... so... break's over. :3
> 
> (Also, Badger and Roe are back because I love them, and I couldn't bear to discard my two favorite OC's. (For those who've not read all my stuff, they originated in Madness and Other Deadly Sins).)
> 
> Enjoy?


	5. Palace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can someone slap me in the face and demand why there haven't been updates in five months?

On the second day, Rosa takes him from Bumble's side.

In a sense, it is a relief. His first priority is always to his employer, so part of him relaxes its frustrated tension at not being able to see her; the other part is disgusted both at his relief and the fact that he has to be near her at all. And, he worries about Bumble.

It's foolish. He knows this, and yet he worries anyway. He has lived long enough, has lost too many companions to know that making friends or caring for others is a weakness. Physical vulnerabilities are bad enough; he knows all too well that emotional ones can wound a man thrice as deep and kill him just as easily.

He doesn't want to care for Bumble, but she makes it too easy.

“Today I'm going to be showing you around,” Rosa says. “Get you familiar with the layout. Introduce you to a few people. You have a good memory for faces?”

Charon thinks for a moment. In the Ninth Circle, nearly everyone was considered a regular; the Underworld was a small place, so he knew every ghoul by name. The few traders who stopped by were either transient drifters or merchants with scheduled loops, so he always recognized them when they came through. A new customer was glaringly obvious, whether smoothskin or ghoul.

“It is passable,” he grunts. In truth, he doesn't know for sure.

“Well, you have a lot of people to remember. We'll start out with my boys.” Rosa gestures to the two men behind her, and Charon recognizes them as some of the men that had accompanied them yesterday—the old man with the long white beard and the ugliest one of the group, a man with a pitted face and extensive tattoos. The old man's eyes shine with a cold intelligence, but the other has dead eyes, the vacant stare of the deceased.

“Flagstaff and Crags,” she says, gesturing at them in turn. For a moment, Charon wonders at her taking two bodyguards with her to see _him,_ of all people, the man who is bound to protect her, but then he remembers what Bumble said about her paranoia.

She continues, “Neither one of them talks much. If either one of them asks you to do something, you'd better listen.”

 _Listen._ She did not say _obey._ Charon keeps his face still, and nods. Eventually, Rosa will figure out how to correct figures of speech like this, but for now, he's not going to spoil the tiny loophole of freedom he has been granted.

Rosa shows him the layout of the top floor of the _cuartel—_ confirming what Bumble had told him, Flagstaff has quarters beside hers, with the man named Loch across. To Rosa's left is Bumble's room, and past that, the whole other half belongs to Jericho's family.

Charon requests to see the insides of each room, and Rosa agrees. Flagstaff's room is small and spartan, located at the corner of the building. He prowls around the room once, taking in the neat, orderly appearance; quietly, he approves, but that doesn't mean he likes the other man. He thinks that based on his home and demeanor, they are alike. In too many ways, he suspects. Both of them reticent and accomplished killers. Keeping their own thoughts to themselves, judging the world around them.

They meet eyes as Charon exits the old man's room, and Charon gives him a silent nod. Flagstaff makes no sign of acknowledgment, but his eyes only follow him into the next room.

Loch isn't in, but his wife is; a mohawked raider fat with pregnancy and smoking cigarettes while her squalling spawn kicks around on the threadbare carpet.

“Peaches,” Rosa says, and snaps her fingers. “Cigarette. Now. You want to give birth to a ghoul?”

Peaches stubs out her cigarette and scowls. “Yeah, yeah. You try to have an ankle-biter while incubating a parasite. You'd be reachin' for your cigarettes too.”

“You're lucky to have kids,” Rosa says quietly. “Most people aren't so lucky.”

“Yeah, and most people aren't so unfortunate to be hitched to a man with the smarts of a Super Mutant, but here I am, ain't I?”

Rosa huffs out a laugh. “Loch's intelligence nonwithstanding, you don't need to ruin his kids any further with smoking, alright? I'm serious. Knock it off.”

The raider nods, runs a hand through her mohawk, and sighs. “Yes, boss.”

Charon takes the time to step through the room, carefully avoiding the child still crying on the floor; urine is running down the toddler's legs as he thrashes in furious indignation. The rest of the apartment is equally dismal. Trash is everywhere. Cigarette butts litter the floor. One is still live in the kitchen, and Charon crushes it under his heel before heading back towards Rosa.

“Clear,” he says, and Rosa laughs.

“If you say so.”

He wonders what she would have said if she knew how close she had been to losing her home to flames, but doesn't mention it. There's nothing in his contract that says that he needs to tell Rosa _what_ he saves her from.

Rosa ignores her own rooms, saying that Charon can look at them later, and takes him to Jericho's suites. True to what Bumble had told him, and based upon his first perusal of the building, Jericho's apartment is enormous.

“Ayy!” a voice calls, and his gaze snaps to the right. Jerry is sitting on a sofa, hand raised, a huge grin on his face. Today he has forgone the bandana, and his bright red hair sticks up with fluffy, messy curls without the strip of cloth to hold it back. Hothouse sits across from him, and a third blond man is cross-legged on a crate. The three of them are sitting around a coffee table playing a card game. A pile of caps rests on the unoccupied end.

“Hey boys,” Rosa replies. “Is your dad around?”

Charon blinks. _Your dad?_ Are all three of them... no. Surely not. A red-head, a blond, and a black man? Jericho's _Hispanic._

“Nah, he's outside the walls,” Jerry says. “Dad said he wanted to kill some stuff. That was about a half hour ago, so he'll probably be back soon.”

 _Although,_ Charon muses, _Bumble said that he has an unusual number of children._ He'd assumed that it was to the same woman, but...

Speaking of women, the girl that he'd seen with Jericho races out of another room; the suddenness makes him pull his shotgun over his shoulder in an instant, snarling wordlessly. The girl—barely able to walk— _not even a child, a toddler_ —she can't be older than two—starts to cry as soon as she sees him.

“Kelsea, baby, it's okay,” a voice calls, and within moments, a heavily-pregnant woman waddles out, and Charon lets go of his shotgun's stock, feeling guilty. He doesn't see children often. Maybe one every few years, and it's been a very long time since he's seen one this young. Maybe not even when he was with Ahzrukhal.

The woman picks up the child with difficulty, her face pinched with effort, but her face smooths over when she looks at him. _She's young._ Too young for Jericho, although he guesses that this is Kelsea's mother, and therefore Jericho's wife.

She has sad eyes.

Charon wonders why he notices this. It doesn't matter; it has no bearing on her threat level to Rosa. She's safe, though. Unarmed, pregnant, and holding a baby, there's no possible way she could harm his master.

“See, he's just a ghoul, sweetie,” the woman says, and smiles at him. “Like Gideon. You love Gideon!”

The child buries her face against the woman's chest, and she laughs.

“She's shy,” she explains to him, though explanation isn't necessary. “My name's Nova. I guess you're Rosa's new guard?”

Rosa is watching him, wary, and he can tell she didn't appreciate him pointing his weapon at the toddler. (He's not too impressed with himself either.) The three young men at the table are alert, too. Charon glances to the side, feeling Flagstaff and Crags at his back. It's uncomfortable, and he wishes that Nova would express distaste and disinterest in him, just like nearly everyone else in Nevergreen Mills.

“Yes,” he grits out, meeting her eyes once more.

“What's your name?”

“Charon.”

“It's lovely to meet you.” She reaches out, and it takes him a second to realize that she wants to shake his hand. He takes her hand clumsily, and gives it a perfunctory shake before stepping away; Kelsea is still hiding her face against her mother's breast, and he'd noticed her shoulders tense at the closer proximity. He wonders why Nova is so congenial when it is obvious that Charon himself is the most dangerous man in the room.

“Nova is Jericho's wife,” Rosa says at last, crossing her arms. “Most of the kids you see around here are his progeny of some sort; they're either his kids or his grandchildren.”

Charon takes this in quietly; this isn't what he'd expected Jericho's wife to look like. He'd thought she would be someone just as ugly and mean as him; or maybe someone vicious and crass. Not...  _this._ She is obviously not a raider; her face and arms are unscarred, and she has an innate kindness that speaks of a different life.

“Are you introducing him to everyone?” Nova asks, smiling. “Have you met my boys yet?”

“I have met those two,” Charon grunts, nodding at the three men in the corner. He's reluctant to say their names.

“Oh, I guess you have! Jerry and Torrance, you would have been with them on the way back from the Underworld. Er, sorry, he goes by Hothouse. The blond is Neil. I'm their step-mother.” She pauses, thinking. “Carter and Rico are out playing, I think. I have other step-sons, but they don't live in the _cuartel.”_

“Hothouse and I don't either,” Neil offers. “This place isn't _that_ big.”

“Mm,” Rosa agrees. “You boys want to show Charon your rooms? I'm giving him the layout of the Mills.”

Neil rolls his eyes. “You say that as if I'm a kid or something.”

“Yeah!” Jerry accuses, jumping to his feet. “We're grown men!”

 _“You_ aren't, you're only seventeen,” Neil says.

“Ooh, so far away from twenty, I know,” his brother scoffs. “Another year and you're gonna have arthritis.”

“Leave off, she wasn't even talking to you,” Hothouse— _or is it Torrance?—_ grumbles, standing up. “I don't mind showing him around. Just, quit holding onto your gun like that, okay? You're making me nervous.”

Charon lets go again. He hadn't realized that he'd been touching it at all.

“Boss!” Jerry whines. “You can't take them! We're playing Texas Hold'em!”

Rosa raises an eyebrow. “So? You can play Go Fish with Carter and Kelsea instead.”

Jerry lets out a long and anguished sigh as Hothouse and Neil file towards the doorway.

Jericho's wife smiles. “It was nice meeting you, Charon.”

He's not sure that he believes her, though, because as she watches them leave, her sad gray eyes lose what little light they had gained. And although Jerry says something that makes her laugh as Flagstaff closes the door, the sound does not have the happiness that one would expect.

 

* * *

 

Neil and Hothouse show him their rooms, and then he's off to see the rest on the third floor: there's a sort of lounge, with a jukebox that someone very strong had apparently carried up the stairs; and the rooms of other raiders whose names he struggles to remember. The layout is more important. In the case of fire or attack or any other kind of disaster, it is good to know each blind spot and the location of every window. In each room, he tests the windows, looks out at each visible tract of land below.

This will be a good vantage point, he decides. If, and when, probably, another group of raiders or perhaps the Regulators (if there are any of them left, after all this time) come to destroy Nevergreen Mills, the _cuartel_ will be a good place to defend from. That being said, he hopes that if such a thing happens, he'll be here and not in the baths with Bumble or Rosa. If they are overtaken, fighting their way out of that dripping cave would be difficult indeed.

The ground floor is different. There's the lobby at the bottom of the princess staircase; to the left of that is the kitchens, and beside that, an enormous steel door that appears to be barred from the inside.

“You won't ever go in there,” Rosa says, tapping on the steel door. “It's rarely ever unlocked. I can't imagine a cause for you to ever _need_ to be in there, either. This is Killian's suites, that he shares with his daughter, Cassie. Killian is one of Jericho's sons, but again, I'm not sure how often you'll see him.”

“He doesn't leave?”

“No. Most of Jericho's children have some... odd mutations.” Rosa rocks back on her heels, thinking, and then leans against the wall. “As... appreciative of women as Jericho is, that's not the only reason why he has so many children. You can't tell just by looking at him, but his genetics are a mess. The pieces keep recombining and shifting. Which normally is never a good thing, it should be killing him, but he also has incredible regenerative abilities. Just fast enough to keep him alive. This recombination has also made him rather... virile, shall we say, and his genetics have been passed on to nearly all of his children.”

Charon grunts. Interesting. If his genetics have been affected, he _should_ have turned into something like a ghoul, or a Super Mutant, or even a centaur. Instead, it's created a stud, allowing him to breed with possibly dozens of women and having a slew of children.

“Jerry, for instance, has the same regeneration that his father does. Hothouse has the dubious honor of being able to eat the most rotten and spoiled foods without suffering one bit. And Killian, well... no one ever calls him that. _Sloth_ is a more apt name, so that's what we go with.”

Rosa seems to be expecting an answer.

“He sleeps?”

“Hibernates,” she corrects. “We think it's a mutation to help keep him alive in times of famine. His heartbeat goes down to ten beats per minute, and he barely breathes at all. His daughter Cassie is the same way. Hence the door. You could drop an atom bomb on top of the Mills, and they wouldn't wake up. Safer for them if they're locked in.”

“How often do they wake up?”

“Varies. Sloth can keep himself awake, but it's easier not to fight it.” Rosa dusts herself off. “Ready to see the rest? Not much left now.”

 _Not much,_ apparently, is a cavernous room that takes up the rest of the first floor. Charon takes in the high windows, slatted with iron bars—it allows in light without allowing potential intruders, and after careful consideration he realizes that it's triple-paned bulletproof glass. There won't be any assassins reaching Rosa from up above.

The light filling the room illuminates a heavy oaken chair at the front of the room. It's not _quite_ a throne, but the resemblance is clear, and Charon thinks, purposeful.

Rosa makes her way to the chair, and Charon glances side to side. Precious works of art fill the walls, placed tastefully in between the barred windows. Navy-blue velvet curtains hang solemnly every few dozen feet, adding to the cloying sense of regal judgment.

“As I've said before,” Rosa says, settling herself on the chair, “Nevergreen Mills is my city, and I am its queen.” A calloused finger taps the embroidery above her breast. _Queen Bitch._ Charon wonders if anyone has ever called her that. _If they have, I doubt they lived much longer._ He wonders at the thought of her wearing such a slur in the first place.

“That being said, this is my courtroom. When the people who pay me to protect them come to seek their due, I hear them out and decide if it warrants my raiders' attention. And this is where the merchants come upon arrival. Every major decision happens within this room.”

Flagstaff and Crags have taken up positions beside Rosa, each a little in front of her. It's a good place, but he doesn't like the thought that anyone could walk in and unload in her general direction. Although, he supposes that that's what the guards at the gate are for. They'd never let anyone armed into the Mills.

As if mirroring his thoughts, the doors at the other end of the room burst open, and Jericho storms inside, scowling.

Knowing what he does now about the old man, Charon has to give him another once-over. He still looks as old as the hills... but knowing that his DNA is a tangled mess of fragile failures and regeneration makes a little more wary. It means, that possibly, Jericho could develop a number of other mutations that might make him even more dangerous, whether to his contract-holder or to the rest of the world.

Rosa seems to trust him implicitly, but that hardly makes him trustworthy.

“What's wrong with you?” Rosa calls.

“Damn molerats got into the cabbage field again,” he harrumphs, looking annoyed. “Killed some halfwit girl before I got there.”

“Thanks for taking care of that. Everything else okay though?”

“Good enough,” Jericho says, and then his eyes fall on Charon, who crosses his arms, leaving his face impassive. “You still haven't ditched this dumb fuck?”

“He hasn't outlived his usefulness yet,” Rosa replies. “Besides, he's going back to Bumble once I'm done with him. He's not really for me.”

Charon's eyes slide towards her. “Then give my contract to her.”

Rosa scoffs. “And trust a beast like you to my only child? Fool thing would end up trying to free you. Or get both of you killed, more like. Besides, don't think I'm dumb enough to hand over your contract. I saw how your last employer went.”

He shrugs internally. _Worth a try._

 

 


End file.
